Center for Functional Nanomaterials Seminar

In modern biological sciences, nanoscience and nanotechnology it becomes increasingly imperative our ability of an understanding and a precise alteration of nature on the scale of molecules. As an important and powerful research tool, molecular imaging technologies have undergone explosive growth over the last decade. It now becomes possible to observe in real time single molecules inside a living cell and to probe their wondrously complex interactions. A plethora of modern single molecule fluorescence methodologies includes fluorescence auto- and cross-correlation spectroscopy (FCS), single molecule and single particle tracking (SPT), and single molecule Förster energy transfer (smFRET). A combination of these complementary methodologies, enhanced with multi-color signal and image analysis, has been increasingly used for monitoring different aspects of complex molecular structure and function. We use these state-of-the-art technologies to learn how RNA interference (RNAi) functions at the molecular level. RNAi is a cellular built-in function that regulates gene expression and is also a part of an anti-viral defense system. RNAi has very important implications for controlling cellular behavior for a variety of biotechnological and biomedical purposes. Andrew Fire and Craig Mello, who received medical Nobel award in 2006 for their discovery of RNAi process in 1998, commented on the significance of RNAi for medicine: “New opportunities for using the technique are still emerging. Besides fighting viral infection, the method could be adapted to combat cancer, endocrine disorders and cardiovascular disease.” However, before RNAi can discover its full potential as a therapeutic and investigative tool, a few major problems have to be resolved. In this talk, I will show how unique insights in both of the aforementioned areas of RNAi research have been gained by visualizing and analyzing these processes at single molecule level.